Editor’s Note: This article was written by a contributor and not by Maman Caféine. Please be respectful in the comments.
I wouldn’t wish what I went through on anyone, because it’s extremely difficult to recover from this betrayal. While the fruit of what I believed to be my love with my partner was growing inside me, he decided to seek comfort elsewhere and destroy all the trust we had spent so much time building and maintaining. Being cheated on is never easy, but I believe the betrayal is even greater when it happens while you’re carrying a little one who was conceived out of what you believed to be a deep and lasting love.
I got pregnant fairly quickly—I was lucky. My boyfriend and I had been talking about it for a while already. It was a mutual decision, and he was just as excited as I was—if not more so. So when we saw the word “pregnant” on the test, we were over the moon—literally. Unfortunately, my pregnancy wasn’t easy. I had intense nausea throughout my first trimester (pretty typical), but it lasted almost the entire pregnancy. And then, you know how it is… hormones, stress, the weight of the baby growing inside me, doctor’s appointments, work, and my sex drive (which took a hit). Pregnancy is far from easy, and it’s normal for it to affect a couple, especially when it comes to sex. In my case, let’s just say I didn’t feel desirable at all. I didn’t like my body when I was pregnant; I felt detached from it, as if it no longer belonged to me. So sharing it intimately with my partner was difficult for me.
We talked about it because I felt like my partner was putting a little pressure on me, and I didn’t like that. I explained how I felt and suggested alternatives, like sex without penetration and foreplay. He seemed to understand and agreed that we could approach our sex life a little differently while I was pregnant. For a while, I really felt like we were on the right track. My belly was growing, my partner was involved in my prenatal care, we were showing each other a lot of affection—everything seemed beautiful and gentle. Until the day I accidentally stumbled upon a text message exchange (my boyfriend’s iMessages were logged in on our shared iPad)…
Credit: Jonas Leupe/Unsplash
My boyfriend had been sexting another woman for several weeks already. I couldn’t bring myself to read the entire conversation between the two of them—first, because my eyes were filled with tears, and second, because it wouldn’t have changed anything anyway. The damage was already done. At that point, I was just entering my third trimester, and it felt like I’d never be able to escape the torment I’d just been plunged into.
When my partner came home from his night out, I confronted him immediately. There was no way I was going to wait any longer. Since he was faced with the facts, he didn’t try to lie. He confessed everything in one go, driving the knife even deeper into my heart. He was sexually unsatisfied. He thought my offer would have been enough to satisfy him, but he soon realized that he missed our previous lovemaking and foreplay too much. Since he thought I was completely closed off to any discussion on the subject, he looked elsewhere—on a dating site… He’d never met the woman in person, but they’d already FaceTimed a few times, and he’d obviously exchanged dozens and dozens of flirty texts. In the same breath, he confessed that the idea of becoming a dad had recently started to cause him immense anxiety, and that some of his behavior stemmed from his attempt to “escape” this new responsibility. He broke down in tears and apologized. He told me he was still in love with me and that he wanted me to give him a chance.
After his confession, I didn’t know how to respond or even what to think. I told him I needed time to think about the future of our relationship and our family in the making… I went to stay with my sister for a few days, and I thought long and hard about it.
Credit: Alex Green/Pexels
My decision certainly won’t be universally accepted, but I’m sharing it with you anyway: I stayed.
I stayed because I had a little one growing inside me and I wanted to give him a close-knit family. I stayed because, despite my boyfriend’s betrayal, the fact that he never pushed to meet the woman in person made the whole thing a little less awful (even though we shouldn’t “rank” different kinds of cheating…). I stayed because I believe in second chances.
Since then, we’ve welcomed our child into the world, and we’re working on our relationship with the help of a psychologist and a sex therapist. The pain is still there, and it’s more intense on some days, but I’ve chosen to move forward and trust him again. It’s far from easy, but when I wake up and my boyfriend brings the baby into our bed so the three of us can snuggle up together, I find it’s all worth it. Only time will tell if I’m right to trust him again…
Have you experienced a similar betrayal? How did you react?